As mobile communications devices (MCD) like the Blackberry become more common, subscribers use these devices more often for common applications like email. Emails may be downloaded locally to the mobile communication device for viewing by a subscriber, leaving a copy of the email on an email server.
In order to control the size of email inboxes, mail servers can be configured to archive email messages that meet certain criteria, such as a timestamp associated with the email, whether the email has file attachments, etc. When an email message is archived, the email message is copied to an archive server and a condensed or “summary” copy can be left in the subscriber's inbox as a reference to the archived email. The summary copy can be used to retrieve the full email message from the archive server.
However, with mobile communication devices that maintain a local copy of emails (i.e., distinct from the copy on the email server), there is no way for the mobile communication device (or the subscriber) to know when an email message has been archived. An email generated by forwarding or replying to an archived email message that is based on a local copy (which has not been condensed) can be missing portions of the original email message, for example, only the summary copy is forwarded.